Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko’s attempt to drive thousands of migrants into neighboring nations has drawn a rebuke from NATO as the border crisis raises the risk of a new European conflict.

“The North Atlantic Council strongly condemns the continued instrumentalization of irregular migration artificially created by Belarus as part of hybrid actions targeted against Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia for political purposes,” the trans-Atlantic alliance said Friday in a joint statement. “These callous actions endanger the lives of vulnerable people.”